Shares in Steemit have no legal relationship to the Steem cryptocurrency
If that was to be held true then the issue of whether the mining stake is part and parcel belonging to Steemit does not exist. They are, after all just as you have stated, unrelated. But there is hope for you yet as.....
Cryptocurrency holds value only because users of the network decide to give it value
No, that would be the SEC Chairmans job of determining who and what holds value, his determination was that crypto's hold value just the same as fiat and are to be treated the same as fiat when moving forward in lawsuits.
And if a cryptocurrency loses those users, the value, in fact, goes to 0.
...and yet thousands of inactive accounts have proven that theory to be wrong, yes, thousands have left this platform and it keeps right on ticking, it's value has gone down but arguing the point of losing users and the effect it has had on the value so far seems to fall on death ears. Believe the point has been debated so much one could cite it from memory.
And Steemit itself has written forks of the Steem blockchain code many times, including redistributing funds in accounts as part of a hardfork
Which was one of the reason I ended up filing a complaint over a year ago. That complaint was taken as the intake worker determined my compliant was valid after posing a series of questions to me. It is illegal to redistribute funds from the lower tier to benefit the upper tier....in the "real" world that is called a ponzi scheme or close enough to qualify as one. Just because they did it and haven't been brought to task over it doesn't mean it's legal, what it means is that nobody who can afford to hire a lawyer and take them task themselves has to wait for the slow churning wheels of the government to get involved. When they look at, for example, someone like me who complains on the virtue of the offense instead of a huge monetary loss they just sit in a pile, as explained by the intake worker, until enough of these complaints pile onto someone desk or they get tired of seeing the company name always being complain about before they will finally act.
One other point....like most on here Justin isn't hiding and he has the means, when it comes to the current issue at hand so I wouldn't underestimate that fact. He legitimately bought a business and he's entitled to do whatever he wants with it....unless it can be proven he didn't buy the company lock, stock and barrel whereas no input from anyone would have been required to be involved. Like stated above it would have to be determined what, if any, and how much came out of the mined staked for develop and if he was aware of that commitment would be the amount of liability held on his behalf, otherwise that would fall directly on Ned's shoulders....and still that would depend on whether he promised to use all that money or just some of that money as to whether he fulfilled his verbal commitment.
When that happened, the people running the Steem software on their computers had three simple choices: 1) continue to run the old software, 2) run the new software, or 3) run something completely different that they liked better.
One of the first things I learned on this chain when I came here was that the witnesses don't represent the users, it was during debates on if the chain was centralized or decentralized. In a centralized platform the witnesses would be considered the representative of the users, in a decentralized platform there is no go between the users and upper management. In a decentralized platform all users would have a vote on what changes would be made. When I tried to argue that because people pick the witnesses through voting to represent them that made the platform centralized, I was told by a witness during the debate that they don't represent the users that the users only pick those whom they want to run the nodes. I have never seen, and as many people can attest, that the questions you pose above have never been brought forth in a vote of the people from the witnesses as to which one of those questions should they apply to their actions. Furthermore, as many can attest, the witnesses end up all falling into line with the hardfolk despite that many users objected vehemently to that/those action(s). I'll admit that in order to maintain their status as a witness they'll flip flop it around better than What's Up on her best dressed days but they always go with the corporate flow. So what actions the witnesses take have no bearing on the majority of stakeholders in a representative way.
I started to read your linked article but I didn't have to get far, really I didn't even really have to go there even once I seen the word consensus in the title but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.
All peer-to-peer blockchains operate under some form of consensus. People often talk about the rules of the blockchain as defining the terms of that consensus, which is true in some sense, but very wrong in another.
Maybe now would be a good time for a refresher on that long arm of the law...
May I respectfully suggest you read the posted link again to what the SEC chairman had to say as that's the only persons consensus on the matter that really counts.
It's been nice chatting with you as I've often seen the name but have never had the opportunity.
RE: My thoughts on Soft Fork v0.22.2